Wednesday, April 28, 2010

I'm gonna live where the green grass grows, watch my corn pop up in rows.... (come on country fans, sing it!)
(that's my corn... in the rows...)

We are, for the most part, following the square foot garden method this year. We missed the date to grow seedlings inside, so it will be a slightly delayed garden this year. Most plants started as seeds put right into the ground. We started a new garden in the backyard...

turned our fountain area into an herb garden...

see the wittle babies? aren't they so cute?!!!

and will use the side garden for the rest of the seeds or to transplant plants when thinned out.

But... there is a part of me that wonders if all the time and energy put into this is just creating a large Smorgasbord for this guy...

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Our square foot garden is planted (post to follow another time). I cheaped out frugally stayed budget savvy this year and planted just about everything from seed. However, time crept up on me and I didn't get them started inside like I wanted. Point is, everything is really tiny.
BUT, I did buy strawberry plants. So it wasn't a shocker to me that it was the first to produce something edible!

This is huge! That is why this little strawberry is now called my 'little juicy red heart shaped piece of hope!' And see the red thing behind it? It is it's little sister. We'll call her 'ray of sunshine'.

And look, they brought along their little friends! welcome friends, welcome.

Monday, April 26, 2010

"This is not my lunch, this is not my lunch, this is not my lunch."
I had to repeat that over and over while packing this one. I have recently found out that not only does my son love cold hot dogs, my daughter does too. (bleh!). And she RANDOMLY decided that she is in love with cold corn. It makes me shudder. I guess I am a traditionalist. I like it warm with a pat of butter.
Even though it is cold, I guess I should be glad she loves corn with a 'c' and not Korn with a 'k'. It's better that the four year old is in love with cold fiber packed kernels of wholesome goodness instead of tattooed, new metal, rocker punks. **

**not knocking tattoos... her dad and I both have a few. Of course, mine are dumb things I picked off of 'the wall' back in the college years... yes, mom. I. do. regret. them.... happy? course, I kinda want another... addicting little suckers, aren't they?

Thursday, April 22, 2010

I made dinner of homemade chicken nuggets, mixed veggies, honey chicken fennel, and some sweet couscous. I really made the couscous as a snack, for tomorrow as well as something to go into my own lunch, but we went ahead and had it with dinner as well.

I started cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and asked the kids if they had ideas for their lunches. They started rattling off items from dinner that I was putting away. The fennel dish was gone, (not a hit with the single digit crowd anyhow) but they actually requested everything I made for dinner to go into their lunches. They actually asked for veggies... I mean, the wanted them. I have to say... I faked my smile to cover up my look of shock!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

My son has a field trip today. The lunch has to be totally disposable.
I just have not been buying much in the way of individually packaged foods. Luckily, he had a soccer game last night and the snack that was passed out at the end was more of a mini lunch itself!
Since we got back late, he came home and he pretty much went right to bed. He did eat one item from the feast snack but it was so late that it would have been too much on his stomach right before bed.

So, we put the gatoraide, goldfish, and apples from the soccer snack into his lunch and added some veggie chips and carrots.

Monday, April 19, 2010

This was my son's idea. Usually if I ask him for some good ideas for his lunch, he rattles off the usual suspects and bolts towards the playroom for a lego build-a-thon as quickly as he can. This time, he grabbed his new favorite cereal and gave me a cheesy 'I'll have some of this' kinda smile.
I think he was expecting me to say no.
I love shocking my kids. Come on now, I own a cereal cookbook my poor mother purchased sometime in the 80's because at one point in my single digit years I vowed to only live off of cereal.
Of course I was on board!

So, for this breakfasty lunch we have Kashi Autumn Wheat cereal. There are EXACTLY 29 little 'biscuits'. My son counted out a serving size. The box says 29 is a serving. 29? How random. I think it should be 30 and they should up the size of the box a bit.
I digress...
Along side the 29 cereal nuggets is a container of fresh mango and fresh pineapple, a hard boiled egg, and a banana. I will add milk to his drink bottle in the morning and an extra ice pack tomorrow to keep it icy cold!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

We have quite a bit of organic, grass fed beef in the freezer (went in with friends to purchase a cow a while back). My husband is the grill master around here. It's not that I can't grill, but I just choose to let him take over in that area. He makes an awesome 'inside out' burger. We call it that because it has toppings IN the burger as well as on top. We've done several variations of the burger based on what we have in the house at the time, but the typical burger mix looks like this...
one pound ground beef (makes about 4 big burger)
half of an onion, chopped fine
half of a pepper, finely chopped (we've used various peppers, but typically use bell)
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon (give or take for desired heat) crushed red pepper flakes
heavy sprinkle of hamburger seasoning OR chili powder, black pepper, salt
cheese crumbles

Form into patties and slap those bad boys on the grill.

To top, we love tomato slices, avocado, cheese, and a must is a mix of sliced pepper and onion (we use other halves of each leftover from above) sauteed in brown sugar. The sweet of the brown sugar, the mellowness of the avocado, the coolness of the tomato, and the heat from the burger is an AWESOME combination!

Oh look how the brown sugar gives the onions and peppers a squeezey hug of sweetness.

I am not even going to pretend that I know a single thing about car racing or Nascar. I just know that the races were scheduled to be today at the Texas Motor Speedway and that our family lives a stones throw away from the track. It is a blessing and a curse to be so close. We just stay home since the traffic and local shopping is always packed with race fans.

Well, the rain delayed the races one more day, so what does that mean to me? Well, not running as many errands tomorrow and inspiration for a fun lunch!

On warm weather (and dry) race days, we can smell hot dogs in the air so I had to add a hot dog! This is a coleman's natural hot dog on a whole wheat bun. The hot dog was grilled, but my son loves them cold (bleh!). The small container has organic ketchup to go on top.

The pineapple race car has the number 7 because that is my son's age.... not for any particular driver. It is on a bed of spinach salad.

I wanted to do an apple checkered flag. I didn't have any apples, and wasn't heading to any stores today so... I did blueberries in yogurt as a rather abstract checkerboard.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

To the Oh So Lovely person out there who nominated me as a top 50 food blogger on Babble.... How cool! And to the editors of Babble for agreeing! Thank you for thinking so much of my little blog!
I had no idea I was on the list until a new reader (Anna, from Tall Grass Kitchen) told me.

Lunchbox Limbo was posted at number 26 on the Top 50 List of Mom Food Bloggers!! There are a lot of awesome food blogs on the list, so I am beyond flattered to be even remotely close to the top 50, let alone number 26!

Lunchbox Limbo also came in at number 6 in the category of Most Budget Concious, um conscience, how 'bout conscious, yup, that's it - Most Budget Conscious - (geesh, thank goodness there isn't a super star speller category!)

There are also quite a few other awesome food blogs posted, I've discovered many new blogs and have enjoyed checking them out!

My blog has been looking a little 'wonky' lately. The color sidebars went away and the margins were all 'squishy'. My techno-tarded self has no clue how to fix it... so I am just going with a new template and will simplify the look a little. If you see several changes over the next few days... it's just little ol' me changing my mind again.

Lettuce with raspberry dressing, cucumbers and croutons (all organic), hard boiled easter egg ( I peeled this one for my daughter after taking the pic), a cadberry egg candy leftover from the Easter Bunny, and orange slices. There was something going on at school that day so I packed her a smaller than normal lunch.

Got a letter from my son's school - no more peanut butter/peanut products allowed in his lunches. I grilled my son to see why the letter was coming home now... in April. He says there is a new child in his class with an allergy. So, I don't think this is a school wide thing, just a class or grade level thing - ?

My daughter's school has this policy school wide, so I've been making peanut free lunches for her all year but she only goes to school two days a week.
I gotta get the creative juices going again! My son had fallen into a PB&J slump. Without the ability to re-heat, it sure limits the main course options....but, luckily I have this blog! I can go back through and get lunch ideas from what I have done in the past!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Last week, my preschool class made bird's nests. I had extra 'materials' so made one for each of my two kids for their lunches.

Lunch was a spinach salad with cranberries and feta, fresh pinapple slices, carrots, and a rice crispy treat nest with green coconut grass and chocolate eggs. Good thing the rest of the lunch is pretty healthy and good for you... cause the bird nest treat is far from it, but oh so cute.

Between the end of the school year for me ( I teach preschool, we end in May - lots of end of the year 'stuff' to do), spring projects, painting the house, getting the yard and gardens going, both kids in soccer, and on and on... things have been busier around here.

BUT my kids are still eating lunch! Their lunches just have not been much to look at lately. There have been a lot more 'throw and go' lunches going out the door lately.

Here is a 'throw and go' from last week that I was able to snap a (crooked) picture of...